Bulandshahr gangrape: Police claim ‘crucial leads’

Massive manhunt is on for Saleem Bawariya, main accused in the Bulandshahr episode.

Uttar Pradesh police are yet to arrest the main accused of Bulandshahr gang rape case as Saleem Bawariya of the notorious criminal gang of Bawariyas, is still at large.

Seven teams of the State police and Special Task Force police have launched a massive manhunt to arrest Saleem and raided his possible hideouts in Moradabad, Rajasthan and Haryana but without any success so far. According to the Senior Superintendent of Police Anees Ahmad Ansari, investigating teams have got some crucial leads.

A senior police official, also a member of the STF team, said the gang had met at Bawariya’s home in Bharatpur in Rajasthan about a month before the gang rape in Bulandshahr took place.

“Twenty five members of the gang attended the meeting at Saleem Bawariya’s house. The two members of the gang who attended the meeting — Shahwaiz, Raisuddin of Sutari village in Bulandshahr and Jabar Singh of Gautam Budh Nagar — were arrested by the police as accused in the gang rape case,” the official said. The police got to know about the meeting by interrogating Jabar Singh’s wife who is related to Saleem Bawariya. Police had arrested Singh and his wife from Rabupura village in Gautam Buddh Nagar.

“We have got information that many members of the Saleem Bawariya gang are active in Bulandshahr and have relatives in the district. Shahwaiz who is one of the three accused arrested so far in connection with the case, is a resident of Hapur and an old associate of Saleem,” the official said.

“Singh’s wife told the police that the Bawariya gang worked in an organised way. They operate in four groups and they meet after every five or six months, generally at Saleem’s place. In each of these meetings, all the four groups of the gang are given a target which they are supposed to meet till they meet again,” said the official.

Bawariya gang members escape the police net because they have different names such as ‘saasi’, ‘mewaiti’, ‘ghumantu’, ‘kangra’ and ‘bhaatu.’

Even as the police claim to have got important leads about the gang, many residents of Dostpur village in Bulandshahr on Wednesday claimed that they had been noticing increased presence of a nomadic tribe and had alerted the police. They had held a mahapanchayat in the presence of the local SHO but no action was taken.